The DeanBeat: The best video games are becoming part of something larger

Disclosure: The organizers of ChinaJoy paid my way to Shanghai. Our coverage remains objective.

In the span of a couple of weeks, I heard a couple of very interesting talks on transmedia, or entertainment properties that span multiple media like games, movies, and comic books. One talk took place at the Casual Connect conference in San Francisco, where game developer Nick Fortugno observed that the creation of a new entertainment property is best pursued in the development of a mobile game. That’s because mobile games can be made inexpensively and quickly, compared to movies or console games. You can test out new ideas more easily, with less risk. If you take a risk with a movie, you’ll go broke.